


■ 



r; ; 



IF 



■ mm 



L#2 $S&mk9&BM& B 






HEM WM 



.-■,< 



•>■/<•. 



'c.-« 



■ 






*/.. 



V 



B$l 9e ■ ^■^^■fl 



»*".'>?- 



■ ■ 



■ 



m m H 



NUMBER FIVE 



The Dayton Bureau of Municipal 
Research Finds Against 

A Municipal University 



Good Colleges and Universities Are 

Numerous 



Cheap Universities are Already Too 

Abundant 



The Toledo Municipal University 
Adventure, A Warning 



Junior College Under Board of Educa- 
\H tion Advised 






Excerpts from the Dayton Report, with Toledo Notes 



Toledo editors are largely responsible for the Toledo 
University, the breeding place of socialism and treason. 
This city is paying out thousands of dollars ($150,000 ) 
to maintain an institution that has little to commend it 
while the public streets go unswept, and filth is piling up 
in the alleys because of an empty treasury. 

EDITORIAL TOLEDO TIMES MARCH 8, 1917 






*y\fcv ,' r~ P^- 



From Dayton Daily News, February 17, 1917 



Bureau of Municipal Research Submits Report 

Outlining the Course for Higher Education in 

City. City University Plan Not Given 

an Indorsement. 



City Has More Pressing Needs, Says Committee on Report 



Junior College Is Suggested 



That a municipal university as a charge 
upon the community is not considered desir- 
able in Dayton at this time is the gist of the 
report made Friday evening by the school 
committee of the board of trustees of the 
Dayton Bureau of Municipal Research to the 
committee of inquiry on municipal univer- 
sity recently appointed by the board of edu- 
cation. * * * * 

The report in conclusion says that consid- 
ering enrollments elsewhere the fact that 
there are already several colleges in the 
Miami Valley, that there are three first- 
class universities nearby, that a large pro- 
portion of students would undoubtedly con- 
tinue to go elsewhere, it is probable the en- 
rollment would not approximate for full time 
students even half the number of high school 
graduates who will go to college. * * * * 

One of the most important objections to 
the establishment of a municipal university 
at this time, according to the report, is that 
the city has a large number of unsatisfied 
but pressing needs, which require the atten- 
tion, study and moral and financial support 
of the citizens and needs no extended item- 
ization at this time, it states. They include 
flood prevention, grade crossing elimination, 
new city hall, municipal hospital, more parks 
and playgrounds, etc. 

Schools are also very much in need of 
more money for buildings and operation, it 
is stated. * * * * 

Of the three municipal universities now in 
the state, only Cincinnati can be said to be 
noticeably successful. 

There are 42 colleges and universities in 
Ohio. Three of the most important and 
seven of lesser importance are within two 
or three hours' ride of Dayton. 

Many Ohio colleges are small and weak. 
Dayton should be careful not to add another 
to this list. * * * * 



A junior college is an alternative worthy 
of consideration. 

An alternative program to a municipal 
university is: (a) Improvement of existing 
schools; (b) reorganization for better voca- 
tional training; (c) encouragement and ex- 
tension of co-operative courses; (d) deter- 
mination of possible values of junior high 
schools; (e) establishment of junior college. 

Dayton has several unsatisfied needs which 
may be said to compete with a university 
for consideration — flood prevention, city 
planning, elimination of grade crossings, 
parks and play-grounds, sewage disposal, 
new city hall, central police and fire stations, 
city abattoir, etc. 

The schools also need more money — in 
nearly every phase of their work there are 
unsatisfied needs. 

It seems, however, from the evidence at 
hand, that the disadvantages of a univer- 
sity will outweigh the advantages at the 
present time. * * * * 

The committee which met Friday night 
was appointed several months ago by the 
board of education to go into the matter of 
the feasibility of the establishment of a 
university for the city. The question was 
given thorough and careful attention, every 
phase being investigated. 

The report covers every detail, the survey 
made being of an exhaustive naturel The 
statement is made that with sufficient en- 
dowment the matter would be opened for 
discussion from a new angle as many of the 
objections at present would be eliminated. 

The report is signed: 

F. W. ATKIN, 
JAMES M. IRVIN, 
H. E. TALBOTT, 
ROY G. FITZGERALD, 
ADAM SCHANTZ, JR. 
A. A. MAYSILLES, 
FRANK W. MILLER. 



u$ 



Kit* 



*S 



d 



The Dayton Bureau of Municipal Research Sub- 
mits Report Outlining Course for 
Higher Education 



City University Plan Not Given an Endorsement. The City 
Has More Pressing Needs — Junior College Is Sug- 
gested. 



The Bureau was requested to investi- 
gate and report on "the feasibility of 
establishing a municipal university in 
Dayton, Ohio." 

The report bears date of January 30, 
1917. The following excerpts from this 
report are equally pertinent to Toledo : 

"FINAL CONCLUSION. 

"The School Committee of the Board 
of Trustees of the Dayton Bureau of 
Research believe that as a charge «pon 
the community a municipal university 
is not at this time considered desirable." 
# # # * 
"SUMMARY OF FINDINGS. 

"A large enrollment would mean a 
financial burden to Dayton. 

"Of the three municipal universities 
now in the State, oflly Cincinnati can be 
said to be noticeably successful. 

"There are 42 colleges and universi- 
ties in Ohio. Three of the most im- 
portant and seven of lesser -importance 
are within two or three hours' ride of 
Dayton. 

"Many of Ohio's colleges are small 
and'weak. Dayton should be careful not 
to add another to this list. 

"Considering enrollments elsewhere, 
the fact that there are already several 
colleges in Miami Valley, that there are 
three first class universities nearby, that 
a large proportion of students would 
undoubtedly continue to go elsewhere, 
and that Dayton would not wish (and 
probably could not succeed if it did 
wish) to draw students from a wide 
outside territory, it is probable that the 
enrollment would not approximate for 
full-time students even half the number 
of high school graduates who will go to 
college.* 



"THE JUNIOR COLLEGE; HISTORY 
AND DEVELOPMENT. 

"Whether or not a municipal univer- 
sity is wanted in Dayton, the question 
of higher education in the city should 
not be dismissed without consideration 
of the junior college. The rapid growth 
of the junior college idea within the 
last few years warrants its serious con- 
sideration. If it is felt that we cannot 
have a complete university, will a junior 
college be acceptable in its place? Or, 
would a junior college be more desirable 
in any case than a municipal university ? 
If Dayton does not want or does not 
need a university, does it want or need 
a junior college ? These questions make 
it imperative that we study fully the 
possible functions of such a college in 
this city. 

"The junior college has had its first 
important development within the last 
five or six years in California. There 
are now over a dozen such colleges in 
that State. Other states, notably Illi- 
nois, Missouri, Texas and Michigan, 
have adopted the idea. In many cases 
the experiment seems to be very success- 
ful ; in others less so. 

^While every effort is made to keep 
the names of students who attend the 
Toledo University from the public 
(probably for the reason that the at- 
tendance of most is so irregular and 
transitory) yet obtainable information 
indicates that the so-called Toledo Uni- 
versity has never been able to secure 
one-tenth of the number of Toledo high 
school graduates who go to college, ex- 
cept perhaps in 1915 and 1916, when a 
little larger percentage of girls — kept 
away from the State Normal School at 
Bowling Green by fulsome advertising 
— were in attendance for a two year 
course — a Junior course of study. 



"Definition. 

"A junior college includes the first 
two years of a four year college course. 
Some universities divide their work into 
two parts, — junior college work and 
senior college work. In its application 
here the junior college means the card- 
ing on of such college work in connec- 
tion with the regular school system of 
the city. Often it is carried on in one 
of the high school buildings, and this 
plan could be followed here, if neces- 
sary. 

"Adaptability to Dayton. 

"In many cities where the junior 
college has been developed, it has not 
been adapted to the particular needs 
and facilities of the city. It has fol- 
lowed the lines of the old-style high 
school, teaching chiefly academic work. 
It is not inherent in the idea of a junior 
college that such should be the case. 
The Los Angeles Polytechnic Junior 
College is an exception ; the attempt 
there being made to adapt the teaching 

to the technical needs of the city 

There is no reason why a junior college 
in Dayton could not be technical and 
commercial as well as academic. The 
high school co-operative work could be 
continued in the junior college., thus 
giving four years of co-operative work. 
High school training in business courses 
could be continued for two years more, 
thus giving a two year college course in 
business. 

"A junior college would not be so 
expensive as a municipal university. 
Per capita operation costs in a junior 
college should not be over $150. At 
this rate 100 students could be cared 
for, for $15,000.00. A building large 
enough to accommodate 200 junior col- 
lege students should not cost over $100,- 
000. It is probable that for the first 
year or two the junior college could be 
accommodated in present school build- 
ings. A junior college could very easily 
grow into a municipal university if its 
success in growth and accomplishments 
seemed to demand it. The steps in the 
development might be as follows: 

1. Junior college — two years ad- 
vanced instruction in courses given in 
high school, with special emphasis on 
Davton needs; 

2. A senior college in same courses : 



3. Differentiation between courses, — 
that is, special colleges for engineering, 
education, etc. ; 

4. At the same time gradual intro- 
duction of extension work, such as eve- 
ning classes, short courses, city work, 
etc." 

"Authorization for a Junior College. 

"The following provisions dealing 
with Ohio schools and colleges include 
all which have any possible connection 
with the establishment of junior col- 
leges. 

"Section 7649 defines a high school 
as a school of higher grade than an ele- 
mentary school and lists the general 
branches which may be taught. Under 
the list given almost any line of in- 
struction may be offered. 

"Section 7650 defines a college as 

follows : 
m 

A college is a school of a higher grade 
than a high school, in which instruction in 
the high school branches is carried beyond 
the scope of the high school, and other ad- 
vanced studies are pursued, or a school in 
which special, technical or professional 
studies are pursued 

"Section 7652 defines a high school of the 
first grade as one in which courses offered 
cover a period of not less than four years. 

"It would seem, then, that there is 
a possible authorization for the estab- 
lishment of a junior college under Sec- 
tion 7652, which states that a high 
school course shall not be less than 
four years, but does not give a maxi- 
mum limit."* 



*Of the 43 persons graduated by the To- 
ledo University in June 1917, and supplied 
with Degrees and Diplomas, three-fourths at 
least were Junior College students 

The nine Arts Degrees implied of course 
four years of collegiate work. The fact is 
well known however, that the persons 
awarded such degrees — five women and four 
men — were approaching middle life and had 
received liberal credits for previous acquire- 
ments. A number were "in residence" only 
one year, while the work of others repre- 
sented the normal collegiate work of one 
year, although spread over a longer period. 

It cannot be doubted that the ambition for 
these degrees was an occupational or com- 
mercial one, and were secured from the To- 
ledo University at "Cut-Rates," in money, 
time and attention. 

Institutions furnishing Degrees on such 
terms can always count on a limited patron- 
age, but are not justified in shouting from 
the housetop that they exist to meet a long- 
felt want. 



"Colleges and Universities in Ohio 
Already Abundant. 

"There is a total of forty-two col- 
leges and universities in Ohio. These 
had in 1915 a total enrollment in col- 
legiate work of 17,714, not including 
State normal schools. Four of these 
are State institutions, three are city in- 
stitutions, and the remainder are sec- 
tarian, private or other types. They 
vary in size from Antioch College with 
an enrollment of 55 in collegiate work 
to Ohio State with an enrollment of 
4,597. 

"Three of the more important are 
within two or" three hours of Dayton, — 
Ohio State at Columbus, Miami at Ox- 
ford, and Cincinnati at Cincinnati. In 
addition to this there are six others in 
territory tributary to Dayton, — Leba- 
non University at Lebanon, with an en- 
rollment of 57; Oxford College for 
Women at Oxford with enrollment of 
122 ; Western College for Women at Ox- 
ford with enrollment of 255 (these two 
last have been recently combined) ; 
Wilberforce University at Wilberforce, 
a negro institution, with an enrollment 
of 61 (State supported) ; St. Mary's 
College at Dayton, with an enrollment 
of 70; Antioch College at Yellow 
Springs with an enrollment of 55. 
These enrollments include only collegi- 
ate work. There is also Wittenberg 
College at Springfield, which has a regu- 
lar academic enrollment of 78.* 

*Toledo is equally well supplied with 
institutions of higher education, con- 
veniently accessable to her students. 
The University of Michigan at Ann 
Arbor can be reached in a little over 
one hour ; Oberlin College in two hours, 
and the Ohio State University in three 
hours, while the State Normal College 
at Bowling Green is but 20 miles dis- 
tant. 

Several denominational colleges of 
good repute are to a considerable extent 
patronized by Toledo families affiliated 
with their respective denominations. 
Among these are Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
versity at Delaware, the University of 
Wooster at Wooster, Kenyon College at 
Gambier, Western Reserve at Cleve- 
land and St. John's College at Toledo. 



"These include the collegiate facili- 
ties of the Miami Valley. The three 
important schools first mentioned are 
members of the North Central Associa- 
tion of Colleges and Secondary Schools. 
Of the six smaller ones named, only the 
Western College for Women has been 
accepted by this Association.* 

"It is apparent that there already 
exist near Dayton several small, weak 
institutions. Unless there is assurance 
for Dayton's university of success 
greater than that attained by the ordi- 
nary college in the State, and greater 
than that of either Toledo or Akron 
universities, there is reason to doubt the 
advisability of establishing a university 
here."** 

*The Toledo University some years 
ago .was denied membership in the 
North Central Association of Colleges 
and Secondary Schools. For a decade 
or more the Toledo High School has 
been awarded such membership. 

Redundant Universities. 

# *So redundant are the small "uni- 
versities" in Ohio that one worthy de- 
nominational school long embarrassed 
by the high sounding name — university 
— secured from the recent legislature a 
law changing its charter name from 
"university" to the more modest and 
correct designation, "college." 

The same legislature provided more 
ample methods whereby schools of 
higher education founded by different 
denominations might merge in order to 
provide more efficient instruction and 
administration — each denomination 
having a voting power in the new direc- 
torate proportionate to its denomina- 
tional strength and property interest in 
the new school. 

And Toledo apparently ignorant of 
the prevailing tendency to restrict the 
already too numerous institutions of 
higher education in the state, adds an- 
other to the list — a school hardly 
worthy to called a college much less a 
university, and sweats the common 
schools for its support; and all this is 
done under the pretense of promoting 
' ' education. ' ' 



"Current Operations. 

" ' Under the head of current operation 
come all expenditures for salaries and 
wages, heating, lighting, care of build- 
ings and grounds, and all other activi- 
ties of the university. 

kk In Akron, the cost per student for 
current operation is $211. In Toledo, 
the cost per full-time student is re- 
corded by the Commission on Efficiency 
and Publicity to be $327. This is a 
high per capita figure, leaving out as it 
does all allowance for building expendi- 
tures. $211.00 is low but not too low. 
Cincinnati University College of Engin- 
eering salary cost per capita is $132. 
Figures for total operation costs are not 
available. Approximately $225 per 
capita should be a fair figure for Day- 
ton to expect. 

"Toledo, with a population of about 
200,000, had in its university last year a 
total enrollment of 912. So large a 
proportion of these were part-time stu- 
dents that an investigation discovered 
that if reduced to the basis of full-time 
students, the enrollment would be 156. 
Akron, with a population of about 
100,000, had last year a full-time enroll- 
ment of 283. Cincinnati University has 
a full-time enrollment equal to 40% of 
the high school enrollment.* 

' ' The third Ohio municipal university 
is in Toledo. This university was orig- 
inally a private academy It was 

taken over by the cit3~ in 1885. Within 
the last few years expenditures have 



*How the public school system of 
Cincinnati suffered by reason of 
insufficient revenues, (while large ap- 
propriations were made to the municipal 
university) was shown by George Kibbe 
Turner in McClure's Magazine, March 
1912. He wrote: 

"In 1901 (under the George B. 
Cox regime during which municipal 
university appropriations annual ly 
increased) many school buildings 
were dirty old barracks, with the 
ventilation, fire protection and sani- 
tation of the 70 \s; lacking in mod- 
ern departments, supported by an 
appropriation about half as large 
as those of other cities of the state. 
"A whole generation of men 
were robbed of their normal chance 



grown rapidly. When for the present 
year, a large increase was asked, the 
commission on publicity and efficiency 
of the city of Toledo made a short sur- 
vey to determine the need for the in- 
crease, its report, while expressing no 
definite conclusions, was not very favor- 
able. A reported enrollment of 912 re- 
duced, when put on the basis of full- 
time students, to 156. On this basis, 
the per capita cost last year was $327 
for full time students, not including ex- 
penditures for permanent improve- 
ments. This cost is excessive. 

' ' Of these three municipal universities 
in Ohio, Cincinnati is the only one which 
can be said to be especially successful. 
The Universities of Toledo and Akron, 
from a distance, apparently have not 
done such noteworthy work as has been 
done in Cincinnati. ' ' 

1 ' Geographical Considerations. 

"Every college has its special draw- 
ing territory. The question is, is Day- 
ton so located that it will furnish spe- 
cial university facilities to people in a 
large enough territory to draw an at- 
tendance which will war ant the founda- 
tion of such university ? Consideration 
of this question involves a study of the 
geographical location of the city, with 
reference especially to steam railway 
and traction lines. 

* * Within easy reach of Dayton there 
are now several good teachers' colleges 
— among them Ohio State University 
Teachers' College, Miami University 



in life ; fewer children passed 
through and were graduated from 
the schools in Cincinnati, than from 
those of the little city of Dayton, 
not one third its size." 

[It was during this period of arrested 
development of the Cincinnati public 
schools, that the municipal university 
entered upon its wonderful advertising 
campaign, closely following the methods 
of the patent medicine vendor, and the 
get-rich-quick promoter. In recent 
years great improvements have obtained 
in the public school system in Cincin- 
nati, still the average attendance and 
average graduation of school children 
in proportion to population compares 
unfavorably witli many other Ohio 
cities, Cleveland and Dayton for ex- 
ample.] 



Teachers' College, and Cincinnati Uni- 
versity Teachers' College. Instruction 
in education is also offered in the 
smaller nearby colleges. A teachers' 
college here would have to compete with 
these schools, probably to the extent of 
limiting the attendance to students from 
Dayton and immediately surrounding 
territory. 

"One important objection to the es- 
tablishment of a municipal university at 
the present time is that Dayton has a 
large number of unsatisfied, but press- 
ing needs, which require the attention, 
study, and moral and financial support 
of her citizens. Many of these have 
received during" the past years the con- 
tinuous endorsement, of a large number 
of people, the final action has not been 
affected. These several matters need 
no itemization at this time, nor is an 
extended discussion of them required in 
this connection. They include such sub- 
jects as flood prevention for the com- 
munity, grade crossing elimination, 
adoption of a comprehensive civic plan, 
more parks and playgrounds, an ade- 
quate and modern sewage disposal 
plant, a new city hall, a central police 
station, a municipal abbatoir, a munici- 
pal hospital, etc.* 

*Toledo as well as Dayton has 
many unsatisfied needs "which may be 
said to compete with a municipal uni- 
versity for consideration" — city hall, 
sewage disposal, elimination of grade 
crossings, new central police station, 
better fire and police protection, better 
sustained department of public welfare, 
enabling it to care for and protect the 
city shade trees, and make better pro- 
vision for the equipment and super- 
vision of play grounds. The Toledo 
schools "need more money — in nearly 
every phase of their work, there is un- 
satisfied needs." 

The Teachers' College of the Munici- 
pal University, if continued, must com- 
pete with the State Normal School at 
Bowline- Green, Wood county — twenty 
miles distant — with the Teachers' Col- 
lege at the Ohio State University, with 
the Teachers' College at Ann Arbor, 
Michigan, and with the Normal work 
of the Toledo Board of Education, in- 
volving a reckless duplication of school 
work. 



1 * Schools, also, are very much in need 
of more money, for both building and 
operation purposes. The financial situ- 
ation of the schools is in many respects 
serious, and it would be affected by a 
university. To the extent that a uni- 
versity levy would compete with the 
city and school levies, we are compelled 
to choose between keeping up our city 
and school standards and the possible 

field of university activity ..." 

* # # # 

"Tuition. 

1. "Should Dayton be burdened with 
the training of students from outside 
the city of Dayton ? The preceding dis- 
cussion has assumed that students from 
other counties would attend. 

2. "If tuition is charged attendance 
would be lower, for some who would at- 
tend if there was no tuition, would go 
elsewhere — for example, to Ohio State — 
where there is no tuition charge. 

3. "If, on the other hand, dependence 
for students is placed on Dayton alone 
the enrollment may be so limited as to 
weaken the work of some departments. 

4. "It would be impossible to charge 
a tuition rate which would cover the 
entire cost of instructing the non-resi- 
dent student. In any event the city 
would have to pay part of the cost." 

w w w w 

"The Smith One Per Cent. Law. 

"The sections of the Smith one per 
cent law applying to a municipal uni- 
versity provide, as interpreted in Akron, 
Toledo and Cincinnati, that the levy 
shall come outside the 10-mill but within 
the 15-mill limit. Interest and sinking 
fund requirements of the county, 
schools, and city which fall within this 
limit have, of course., precedence. This 
interpretation of the law was never 
tested, though the Public Efficiency 
Commission of Toledo has asked the city 
attorney for an opinion. 

"The effect of a full fifty-five-hun- 
dredths mill levy for a university Upon 
the amount of levy available for oper- 
ating the city, county and schools dur- 
ing the next several years is problemati- 
cal. The tax rate at present does not 
include full debt charges for the city 
bonds for improvements authorized by 
vote of the people, neither is it known 
whether the people may vote additional 



bond issues which will absorb a greater 
part, or all, of the 5-mill levy. 

"The possibility of amendments to 
the Smith law may well be considered in 
this connection. If, as has been pro- 
posed, all interest and sinking fund re- 
quirements are removed from the 10- 
mill levy, thus leaving it entirely for 
operation, the 5-mill levy will be in- 
creased to the limit, leaving no balance 
available within it as a levy for a uni- 
versity. The university levy would en- 
ter into direct competition with the cur- 
rent operating needs of city, county and 
schools." * * * * 

"The Municipal University Laws. 

"These laws were apparently written 
to provide for colleges already estab- 
lished and taken over by cities. That 
is, there is no direct authority to any 
city to found an entirely new institu- 
tion."* * * * * 

"An Alternative Program. 

"As an alternative to establishing a 
municipal university, the following pro- 
gram is suggested for study : 

1. Improvement of Existing Schools. 
— Instead of spending money for a uni- 
versity, would it not be wise to spend 
all available moneys in eliminating over- 
crowding, advancing teachers' salaries, 
establishing needed special classes, etc. 

2. Reorganization for Better Voca- 
tional Training. — In many places in the 
United States school authorities are 
trying out methods for better adapting 
the schools to the vocational needs of 
the pupils. The most common method 
is the reorganization into elementary 
schools, and junior and senior high 
schools. Under this plan the' elemen- 
tary schools ordinarily consist of the 
present first six grades ; the junior high 
school includes the seventh and eighth 
grades and the first year of high school ; 
the senior high school includes the last 
three years of the present high school. 
The plan makes possible greater oppor- 
tunities for vocational training begin- 
ning with the seventh grade. It has a 
further advantage for Davton in that it 
will definitely relieve the present over- 
crowding in elementary schools, and 
gives promise of doing this most inex- 
pensive! v. 

*?f ) e page 13 for Toledo method of law 
evasion. 



3. Encourage and Extend Co-opera- 
tive Work. — The present co-operative 
high school work is worthy and capable 
of great extension. It could be ex- 
tended to other fields and present 
courses enlarged. In connection with 
Junior and senior high school organiza- 
tion, it is possible to give a very definite 
and valuable vocational training which 
will prepare the student either for ad- 
vanced study elsewhere or for work. 

4. Establish Junior College. — If it 
be desired to give more advanced work, 
the junior college would fit in very well 
with the various courses offered in the 
lower schools. ' ' 

"The Peril of An Increased Tax Rate. 

"The administrator of a govern- 
mental unit today cannot ignore the 
popular will and long endure in office. 
An increased tax rate, no matter how 
essential or laudable the additional 
functions contemplated to be per- 
formed, when recommended by the pub- 
lic official will jeopardize his adminis- 
tration. Until the citizens have mani- 
fested sufficient interest in a city uni- 
versity, therefore, it might prove wise 
to postpone definite action in establish- 
ing it." # # # # 

"Many Unsatisfied Needs. 

"Dayton has several unsatisfied needs 
which may be said to compete with a 
university for consideration — flood pre- 
vention, city planning, elimination of 
grade crossings, parks and play 
grounds, sewage disposal, new citv hall, 
central police and fire stations, city ab- 
attoir, etc. 

"The schools also need more money — 
in nearly every phase of their work 
there are unsatisfied needs. 

"It seems, however, from the evi- 
dence at hand, that the disadvantages 
of a university will outweigh the ad- 
vantagese at the present time. 

"A junior college is an alternative 
worthy of consideration. An alterna- 
tive program to a municipal university 
is : 

(a) Improvement of existing schools; 
(b) Reorganization for better vocational 
training; (c) Encouragement and ex- 
tension of co-operative courses; (d) De- 
termination of possible values of junior 
high schools; Ce) Establishment of 
junior colleges." 



A Municipal Degree Factory 



An examination of the output of the university, during the checkered 
career of this municipal adventure, illustrates the wastefulness and futility of 
such an enterprise, and the inconsequential overlapping of educational oppor- 
tunities already provided. 



Year 



M.D. Ph.C. LL.B. B.A. 



4> bfi 

bDfi 

l| 

M.A. B.G.Sc. U .S 



1905 


6 


* 








1906 


6 










1907 


8 


10 








1908 


3 


10 








1909 


5 


3 








1910 


9 


3 








1911 


8 


9 


3 






1912 


9 


4 


3 


1 




1913 


15 


1 


2 


3 


2 


1914 


2 








4 





1915 





8 


22 


4 


1 


1916 





3 


4 


4 


3 


1917 





3 


1 


8 


1 



s 

IS 



caws 



fe & 1 

I'll 






16 



71 54 35 24 



12 



5 



16 



It will be observed that out of a total 
of 236 degrees, granted in 13 years — 
71 were awarded to students in medi- 
cine, a school so weak and inadequate 
that the American Medical Association 
and the State Medical Board combined 
to put it out of business and prospect- 
ive medical students the country over 
were warned against it. 

Fifty-four degrees have been award- 
ed to students in a so-called College of 
Pharmacy — the only Municipal School 
of Pharmacy in the United States — a 
school of like grade with the School of 
Medicine, built up by the unlawful ap- 
propriation of the Chemical Laboratory 
of the Scott Manual Training School, 
so depleted in attendance that only 
three students were available for de- 
grees in 1917. 

Thirty-five degrees have been award- 
to students in an evening School of 
Law — the only municipal School of Law 
in the United States — a school of doubt- 
ful utility in view of the instruction ob- 
tainable at the nearby State Universi- 
ties, and certainly of unnecessary dupli- 
cation, since equal if not better instruc- 
tion in law is furnished without cost to 



the city in the local St. John's College. 

Twenty-four B. A. degrees have been 
awarded with much flourish to men and 
women in mature life, after having re- 
ceived liberal credits for previously ac- 
quired instruction in other schools. A 
Junior College diploma, secured from 
the Scott or Waite High School, would 
be of far greater value. 

Seven M. A. degrees have been 
awarded to men and women in middle 
life, nearly all in receipt of generous 
salaries or incomes, and abundantly 
able to meet their requirements in 
higher education without calling upon 
the city treasury. Many of these per- 
sons already had degrees secured in 
universities of good repute. 

During a period of seven years twelve 
boys have received degrees or diplomas 
in the so-called "College of Industrial 
Science," now called the Junior Col- 
lege in Engineering, implying attend- 
ance for two years. A post graduate 
course in the Manual Department of the 
Scott or "Waite High School would have 
been of far greater value ; such boys 
would have received instruction and 
been furnished with laboratory and 
shop equipmentments far superior. 



Of the 16 men receiving degrees or 
diplomas in June, 1917, only 4 were 
graduated from the city high schools, 
and these were awarded diplomas for 
Junior college or two-year courses of 
instruction. 

Four men in mature life were award- 
ed the B. A. degree ; one of these was a 
professional man recently arrived in the 
city and in part time attendance not ex- 
ceeding one year; one was a former 
student in an Illinois university, en- 
tered the so-called Toledo University in 
September 1916, and was published in 
the annual Bulletin as an instructor for 
that current"* school year ; another was 
a scholar from Eastern Europe recently 
arrived in Toledo, taking a degree as a 
"flier" on brief attendance — say one 
3^ear. 

Of the four women receiving the B. 
A. degree, one was the wife of a pro- 
fessor in the school ; one was a teacher 
in the public schools, of many years| 
standing; so flexible and languid were 
the university requirements that it was 
possible to remain in the employment 
of the Board of Education, and dis- 
charge the duties imposed upon a public 
school teacher. 

Only one person — a woman — received 
the M. A. degree — a teacher of like 
standing and experience, in the public 
schools. 

Sixteen young women, graduates of 
the city High Schools, received Normal 
Training Diplomas, attesting attend-* 
ance of two years. 

Of the remaining 11 women receiving 
degrees or diplomas, only three had 
graduated from the city High Schools 
in recent years. 

The above table discloses that the so- 
called Municipal university has been 
engaged in doing much that was waste- 
ful and need not be done, and that 
whatever of value has been done was 
already provided for in other depart- 
ments, furnished at the expense of the 
city taxpayers. 



THE 1917 BULLETIN. 



This bulletin discloses many interest- 
ing facts relating to a municipal uni 
versity 'adventure. 

1. The Law Faculty comprises, the 
President, the Dean and nine instruc- 
tors. The product, one student in 
graduation class. 

2. The Faculty in Pharmacy com- 
prises the President, the Dean and five 
Professors. The product, three stud- 
ents, in graduation class. 

3. The Faculty in the College of In- 
dustrial Science comprises the Presi- 
dent, the Dean, four Professors, six in- 
structors and four shop assistants. 
Product, five bo} 7 s, granted a Junior 
College Diploma, implying a two-year 
course of instruction — presumably eve- 
ning work. 

4. The Faculty of the College of 
Commerce and Business comprises the 
President, the Dean and four Profes- 
sors and Instructors. Product, not a 
student attended with attention and 
regularity sufficient to even entitle him 
to a Junior College diploma. 

5. The College of Arts and Science 
comprises the President, the, Dean, thir- 
teen Professors and six Instructors. 
Total 21 employes. Product, four men, 
five women in graduating class, all in 
middle life, with attendance in several 
instances not exceeding one year. 

The Bulletin publishes the names of 
63 "Officers of Instruction" including 
the President, the numerous Deans, 
Professors, Instructors, etc. On an 
average each "officer of instruction" 
has produced two-thirds of a student 
entitled to a Junior College Diploma or 
Degree. Nevertheless the 1917 Bulletin 
coolly announces 337 courses of instruc- 
tion under multiitudinous subdivisions. 

If all the departments of 'the city of 
Toledo were conducted on the same un- 
restricted scale of expenditure, meas- 
ured by accomplished results, it would 
require more than $4,000,000 annually 
to conduct the business of the city, even 
as now managed on present restricted 
income. 



It is, however, same consolation to 
know — for the Bulletin so assures us — 
that the municipal university is a store 
house of universal knowledge, that it 
contains all that is known in art, in 
literature, in science, in philosophy, in 
economics, psychology and sociology, in 
ancient or modern times. It represents, 
we are told, all that is of real or perma- 
nent value in modern civilization. 

This is all told in a large edition of 
the annual bulletin containing approx- 
imately 50,000 words; 50,000 words — 
equal to 10 Sunday morning sermons — 
equal to the number of words used in 
the volume containing Bacon's essays. 

Two thousand of these words are 
used to chronicle the wonderful occupa- 
tions of the President and 24 Profes- 
sors. Educational instutions the wide 
nation over appear to have been in 
quest of their services; from the. Cape 
Cod country to Kansas ; from Minnesota 
to Kentucky ; from Michigan to Texas ; 
from Baltimore to Oshkosh has come 
the call, but such has been the love of 
change that the average stay in each 
place has been brief — say two years — 
in some places more, in some places less. 
So interesting are these recitals, that 
600 of these words are twice printed in 
the same bulletin, giving due emphasis 
to the adventures of the President and 
seven Professors. 

In this interesting publication, as- 
sociated with this body of ambitious 
men — University President, Deans, Pro- 
fessors, Instructors, etc. — are found in 
good round type, the names of the 
University Directors, "appointed by 
the mayor." 

But leading all, preceding all, in 
equally bold type, is printed the names 
of those who are the fountain head of 
' ' the University ' ' — the mayor, and each 
member of the city council ; names for- 
ever to be associated with John Har- 
vard, Johns Hopkins and John Rocke- 
feller. These are the names of the 



"Legislative Officers" of "the Uni- 
versity" whose high mission it is to 
legislate out of the pockets of taxpay- 
ers, the ample funds demanded by the 
itinerate body of Professors who have 
swarmed down on Toledo. 

Here we have applied Psychology 
with a vengeance, and it is confidently 
expected that the council will fall to 
this subtile method of approach. 

No effort, however, will be made to 
explain to the council members that the 
cost to the city for each graduated 
student has been in excess of $3,000 per 
capita, for the current year. If, as is 
claimed, some allowance must be made 
for those who quit after brief attend- 
ance, still the cost per capita for grad- 
uated students will remain in excess 
of $1,500 each — a sum twice greater 
than would be required for like period 
of attendance at the Ohio State or Uni- 
versity of Michigan, including tuition 
board, lodging and transportation. 

# # * 

In his recent comunication to the 
council the mayor said "the city is in 
no position to pay the just wages we 
ought to pay. We simply have not the 
money." At the same time, without 
the blinking of an eye, the mayor ad- 
vised the council to levy a tax on the 
city in the sum of $171,852 for the pre- 
tense of a university — an institution 
duplicating at great cost educational 
work better provided for elsewhere. 

# # * 

Toledo Times, May 17, 1917. 
To Mobilize Labor. * 

The employment office is to be enlarged 
to mobilize labor for farms and industries of 
Lucas county during the war. Council has 
been asked to appropriate $5,000 to enlarge 
the bureau. 

"We have made an investigation and found 
that if we are to get the money to appro- 
priate, we must rob some other fund to get 
it," said Councilman Curtis. 

[The fact that it will be necessary to 
rob some other fund in order to comply 
with the demand of the so-called uni- 
versity — in the sum of $171,852 — funds 
needed for police and fire protection, 
library service, public schools, etc. — 
will probably not seriously engage the 
atention of many councilmen.] 



The cities named below do not indulge 
in the extravagance of municipal uni- 
versities, and do not so impair tax reve- 
enues at the expense of more vital civic 
needs and duties : 



Boston 

Detroit 

New Orleans 

Los Angeles 

Indianapolis 

Seattle 

Wooster 

Scranton 

Richmond 

Nashville 

Chicago 

Baltimore 

Buffalo 

Washington, 

Jersey City 

Denver 

Atlanta 

Oakland 

Dayton 

Patterson 



D. 



Philadelphia 

Cleveland 

San Francisco 

Newark 

Kansas City 

Providence 
• Portland 

Syracuse 

Omaha 

Grand Rapids 

St. Louis 

Pittsburg 

Milwaukee 
C. Minneapolis 

Rochester 

St. Paul 

Columbus 

New Haven 

Memphis 

Fall River 



THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 

"The common school is the greatest 
discovery ever made by man. It is 
supereminent in its universality and in 
the timeliness of the aid it profers,'' 
said Horace Mann. 

In Toledo the greatest enemy of the 
common schools has been the freak 
municipal university robbing such 
schools of much needed public funds 
and stealing private benefactions made 
to further promote the public schools. 



TOLEDO HIGH SCHOOL BUILDINGS 
COMMENDED. 

Principal Arthur D. Call of the Hart- 
ford Henry Bernard School commended 
in the highest terms the two Toledo 
High Schools, before the National Edu- 
cational Association. His address in 
the Chicago Auditorium before 5,000 
teachers covered an exhaustive analysis 
of expert opinion and experience on vo- 
cational, specialized and composite 



high school buildings with the conclu- 
sion that the composite type adopted in 
Toledo would lead to the highest degree 
of efficiency and would reach the larg- 
est number of pupils ; such high schools, 
covering a wide range of studies, in- 
cluding commercial, manual training, 
and domestic science would encourage 
a larger number of grammar pupils to 
complete the high school course of 
study. The Toledo buildings furnished 
an approved model for the whole 
country. 

It is of local interest to note that the 
Cleveland School Survey conducted 
under the auspices of the Russell Sage 
Foundation approved — under all cir- 
cumstances — the composite type of high 
school building — the Toledo type and 
for the reasons stated above. 



WHERE MAY BE FOUND THE TO- 
LEDO MUNICIPAL UNIVERSITY. 

''Down an evil back street, where 
hideous women whine and pluck at men 
from their dark thresholds, and the un- 
certain shadows of drunken boys rock 
in and out of the patches of yellow, 
neath the dim and struggling lamps'' 
may be found Toledo's Red Light and 
Segregated District ; a crater of social 
vice in hideousness and boldness, not 
surpassed in any city, save perhaps 
certain border towns on the Mexican 
frontier. 

On the outer rim of this crater of 
social vice, not three blocks distant, 
sandwiched between warehouses and 
railroad terminals, may be found the 
"Toledo Municipal University," housed 
in an elemantary school building, 
erected 50 years ago by the Board of 
Education, abandoned 20 years ago by 
reason of change of population and un- 
desirable environments. To this origi- 
nal building on the same small lot has 
recently been added a cheaply con- 
structed brick shack bearing the high 
sounding name — Department of Science 
and Engineering. 



10 



How the University Tax Levy Was Taken Out of 
the 10 Mill Limitation 



A Voice From Cincinnati. 

Even in Cincinnati — the Mecca of the 
municipal university concept, there is 
an adverse side. Ever}' new adminis- 
tration staggers at the drafts made on 
the public treasury. The President and 
trustees are ever on the alert with cun- 
ning and skillful devices to retain and 
increase the award of public funds, for 
the municipal university. 

A Cincinnati publication issued in 
1913, contains the following : 

"The Plain Intent of the Trustees. 

"The plain intent of the trustees of 
the university under the leadership of 
President Dabne}^ is to get all the rev- 
enue possible from the people without 
consulting the people. And the fact is 
shown in the action of President Dabney 
in disregarding the action of the council 
of Cincinnati in the following resolution 
passed January 21, 1913 : 

A RESOLUTION 

Requesting the General Assembly of the 
State to pass a special act providing that 
the levy for the University purposes may be 
made by the Council of the city of Cincin- 
nati outside the ten mill limitation of the 
Smith law. 

Be it resolved by the Council of the city 
of Cincinnati, State of Ohio: 

That the General Assembly of the State 
of Ohio be, and the same is hereby peti- 
tioned, to pass a special act to be submitted 
to the electors of the city of Cincinnati 
under Section 2 of Article XVIII of the Con- 
stitution of the State of Ohio, as follows: . 

A BILL 
To provide under what limitation the levy 
for University purposes may be made by the 
Council of the city of Cincinnati: 

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of 
the State of Ohio: 

Section 1. Tax levies for University pur- 
poses in the city of Cincinnati shall not be 
subject to any limitation of rates of taxation 
or maximum rates, provided by law, except 
the limitation of five-tenths of one mill on 
the dollar of all taxable property in such 
municipal corporation and the further limita- 
tion that the combined maximum rate for 
all taxes levied in any year in any city or 
taxing district with or without the vote of 
the people shall not be exceeded. 

Section 2. This act shall be submitted to 
the electors of the city of Cincinnati at a 

special election to be held on the day 

of 1913, and all those 

voting in favor thereof shall vote: "Univer- 



sity levy to be outside the ten mill limit but 
within the fifteen mill limit, 'Yes,' " and 
those opposed thereto shall vote: "Univer- 
sity levy to be outside the ten mill limit but 
within fifteen mil limit, 'No,' " and this act 
shall be operative, if affirmed by a majority 
of those voting thereon. 

Passed, January 21, 1913. 

J. Wu PECK, 
President, pro tern, of Council. 

Attest: ARTHUR ESPY, Clerk. 

[The university authorities, having 
secured from the city council the ap- 
proval of the foregoing resolution, in- 
cluding draft of the proposed legisla- 
tion under which no levy could be made 
till approved by the electors, found little 
difficulty in securing the endorsement 
to such council resolution by certain 
local civic and social clubs. Armed with 
the foregoing request the president of 
the university marched on the state 
capitol and the campaign began. The 
Cincinnati publication continues :] 

" Through the great activity of Presi- 
dent Dabney at Columbus, the second 
section of the bill suggested by the city 
council was stricken out — and why? 
Because the revenue getters of the uni- 
versity realize the fact that their 
revenue getting would meet with a halt 
if the people who pay the revenue 
should be consulted on the question of 
tax burdens. 

"The Boldness of It. 

"Almost triumphantly it ... . was 
claimed that 'the Chamber of Commerce, 
the Business Men's Club, the Federated 
Improvement Association, the City 
Clubs, the Medical-Civics Association 
unite with us in asking you to pass this 
act, which merely gives us (the Cincin- 
nati electors) permission to levy upon 
ourselves a tax of a sufficient amount to 
support our own university. 7 " 

[It was from this view point that the 
bill was considered in committee. All 
discussion was along this line, and on 
the supposition of giving approval to a 
local measure for Cincinnati — the city 
council and citizens having duly peti- 
tioned therefor — was the act, as it now 
appears in the statutes, passed. 



11 



The legislation finally secured dif- 
fered radically from the legislation 
petitioned for, by the city council and 
the approving local clubs. The privi- 
lege to permit the electors to pass upon 
the university tax levy and without 
which, the petition would never have 
been secured, was stricken out. The 
law was made not local, as petitioned 
for in Cincinnati, but general in terms 
and applicable to all Ohio cities where 
municipal universities existed, conform- 
ing to conditions imposed by existing 
statutes. 

The effect of the bill as prepared by 
President Dabney and finally approved 
was to remove the university tax levy 
from the inside of the aggregate limi- 
tation of 10 mills, and place it outside 
of the aggregate 10 mill limit, and in- 
side of a 15 mill aggregate limit, thus 
opening wide the door for a university 
tax levy, but sharply restricting all tax 
levies for Public Schools in Ohio cities 
to the aggregate of 10 mills. That the 
members of the 1913 legislature did not 
understand the full import of the act 
and its final consequences, can well be 
believed. It is quite certain that never 
again can such a subtle device be im- 
posed upon an Ohio legislature. 

If it shall be urged — as it well may— 
that the legislature, under the rulings 
of the Supreme Court, could enact no 
local law for such purpose with a refer- 
endum attachment, the reply is that 
President Dabney and his university 
associates knew that fact just as well 
when the Cincinnati city council was 
begged to approve the resolution of 
January 21, 1913, as they did when the 
final enactment was secured April 30, 
1913. 

Under this law — secured by the de- 
vices described herein — taxation funds 
in Toledo have been depleted to the ex- 
tent of approximately a quarter of a 
million dollars ; every dollar of which 
was imperatively needed by the public 
school system of the city, and every 
dollar of which could have been secured 
by the Board of Education had it 
availed itself of the ample referendum 
provision provided in the Smith tax- 
ation law. The condition is such as to 
arouse and awaken the attention of 
every citizen in Toledo who has due 



regard for the elementary schools of 
the city and the general public welfare. 

The Cincinnati publication continues 
as follows :] 

"When Cincinnati took over the two 
colleges provided for in the McMicken 
will and added a university to her 
municipal belongings, a bond issue in 
the sum of $185,000 was asked and con- 
sidered and stated to be sufficient. But 
since the $185,000 bond issue, Cincin- 
nati has issued her bonds in the added 
sum of $1,200,000 and the cry is still 
for more ! In 1912 -the city gave the 
university $155,000 . . . and still the 
cry for more goes up insistently. The 
recent (1913) legislature enacted legis- 
lation which would give to the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati an additional 
revenue of $300,000 annually — a rev- 
enue of more than $1,000 per day of the 
working days of the year — and the 98 
per cent of the citizenship unrepre- 
sented by the University Revenue Get- 
ter, and unbenefitted by it, would be 
the tax burden carried for the two per 
een* represented and benefitted. 

"Is that fair? Is it honest? Is it 
just? The money of the entire people 
of Cincinnati is in question, but the 
clamorers for the revenue getter are so 
impatient and dominant in their de- 
mands that they insist that the people 
who contribute the revenue shall not be 
given the privilege of a referendum 
vote! 

Later Moves For Revenue Getting; 
$550,000 Bond Issue. 

."The clamor and the cry for more 
goes up with each succeeding year. 
And 'How to Get More Revenue?' is 
the constant study of the president, the 
faculty and the trustees of the institu- 
tion. In 1912 the city council voted a 
most generous bond issue for the uni- 
versity in the sum of $550,000, for the 
erection of new buildings and for 
further extending the "scope" of in- 
stitution. So large was the issue that 
a demand came for a referendum on it. 
That the citizenship should be consulted 
was right and proper. And immediately 
the activities of the president of the 
university were brought into play and 
the referendum was not granted." 



12 



LOCAL LEGISLATION 



From 1870, when an act for Cincin- 
nati was first passed, down to May 12, 
1902, all municipal university legisla- 
tion was local and limited to Cincinnati. 
The act of May 12, 1902, reads : 

"In cities of the first grade of the 
first* class (Cincinnati) where there are 
universities supported in whole or in 
part by public taxation," taxes may be 
levied and to the extent of .36 of one 
mill, etc." 

Within one month after the university 
amendatory act of May 12, 1902, was 
passed the Supreme Court handed down 
its revolutionary ruling that all special 
legislation for municipalities was uncon- 
stitutional. 

A sjjecial session of the legislature 
was called, convening in October 1902, 
to revamp certain laws in order to com- 
ply with the requirements of the new 
ruling of the State Supreme Court. 

At this extraordinary session, the 
authority to levy a limited tax for the 
Cincinnati University (evidenced by 
careful phraseology) was enacted in 
general terms, (see S. L. Vol. 95 p. 91) 
and since hedged about by definition 
and special prohibitions, making such 
authority in fact applicable only to Cin- 
cinnati. 

Since 1902 the laws have been twice 
codified, and what now appears as Sec- 
tions 7908 and 7909, originally com- 
prised one section. 

Some of these limitations and defini- 
tions restricting the power of taxation 
for municipal universities appear be- 
low: 

First, This power can be exercised 
only when a university in fact already 
exists. 

Second, "A university supported in 
whole or in part by municipal taxation 
is hereby defined as an assemblage of 
colleges united under one organization 
or management affording instruction in 
the arts, sciences and the learned pro- 
fession and conferring degrees." 

Only in a municipality where such an 
institution is already established in a 
city, through sufficient gifts to create 
the same can a tax be levied. 

The act of 1904 carries the further 
prohibition that such taxes shall not be 
levied when the chief work of instruc- 



tion is not in advance of the instruction 
authorized to be given by the board of 
education. 

As stated in the Dayton Report no 
law exists authorizing any Ohio city to 
found or establish a municipal univer- 
sity. A limited authority appears, to 
impose a tax to aid an institution al- 
ready established, when the work of 
such institution is of the prescribed 
grade and not overlapping the work of 
the public schools under Boards of 
Education. 

Toledo did not have such institution. 
A private academy of an industrial 
type had been set over to the city in 
consideration that its work should be 
combined with the city high school. The 
state legislature placed such academy 
and its properties — a private benefac- 
tion — under the administrative charge 
of the Board of Education. The scheme 
devised was this ; appoint a board of 
university trustees, as if a municipal 
university existed; such so called uni- 
versity board to lay claim to and se- 
cure administrative control of the 
academy in question and its trust prop- 
erties; name the Scott Manual Train- 
ing School a University; fortify the 
contention of universit}^ pretense, by 
leasing a private low grade medical 
school building at $1,000 per year; 
transfer the chemical laboratory of the 
Scott Manual Training School to the 
rented medical building, and with such 
limited equipment so secured advertise 
a "College of Pharmacy " 

For five years such low grade medi- 
cal school, and the equally low grade 
"College of Pharmacy" had no income 
•save fees from a limited number of 
students and transfers from the Manual 
Training School funds. These funds 
were soon exhausted and the Board of 
Education was permitted to conduct 
and operate the Manual Training 
School in conjunction with the city 
high school. 

The medical school — since put out of 
business under the combined action of 
the American Medical Association and 
the State Medical board — and the 
"College of Pharmacy" continued to 
be advertised as the Toledo University 
with fulsome and pretentions annual 
bulletins. The city council for several 
years refused to recognize the so called 
university or to make any appropria- 
tion therefor and reaffirmed by ordi- 



18 



nance the Board of Education control 
of the Scott benefactions. 

A prolonged and costly litigation be- 
tween the so-called university directors 
on the one hand and the Board of 
Education and the original Scott 
Trustees on the other followed : the 
Scott family taking an active and costly 
part therein to save their benefactions 
from the impending, reckless and 
wicked misappropriation. Under a 
divided court, by the small fraction of 
a vote a decree was secured, awarding 
the administrative control of the Scott 
benefactions to the so-called university 
directors, but with the direct mandate 
to continue the Scott Manual Training 
School as it had theretofore been con- 
ducted, — and this mandate was reaf- 
firmed in the final decree awarding the 
Anna C. Mott bequest "to increase the 
usefulness of the Manual School" to 
such directors. 

Having secured administrative con- 
trol of the Scott benefactions including 
the Manual Training Annex to the Cen- 
tral High School, with no intention of 
obeying the order of the Court of Ap- 
peal, the so-called university directors 
locked the doors of the Manual School 
building and declared that not a teach- 
er or pupil should again enter, until 
the Board of Education— which Board 
had during the period of litigation 
maintained the school at its own cost — 
should hand over in money an agreed 
valuation of the building and its equip- 
ments. An agreement was finally 
reached by which the Board of Educa- 
tion purchased the claim of the so- 
called University Directors to the 
Manual School building and the re- 
maining equipments, paying therefor 
$25,000 in cash and the title to the 
vacant and long abandoned Illinois 
street elementary school building. This 
"university hold up" of the Board of 
Education and the wresting of a valu- 
able trust property from its proper 
custodians, constitutes one of the most 
disgraceful chapters in the history of 
Toledo. So limited was the tax revenue 
of the Board of Education at the time 
that Bonds in the sum of $20,000 which 
the people had voted for ward school 
buildings were sold in order to secure 
the money demanded by the conspira- 
tors. 



THE STRUGGLING CITY LIBRARY. 

In his annual report, just submitted, 
the President of the City Library Board 
says : 

"The total circulation of books was 379,362 
showing a loss of 20,031 compared with 1915. 
That the loss was not greater is surprising 
in view of the serious curtailment of book 
purchases and hours of opening. Shortage 
of funds made it necessary to close the main 
library every evening for more than half 
of the year, that is the hours of opening the 
adult departments were reduced almost one- 
fourth for more than half of the year, mak- 
ing approximate shortening of hours of the 
year of about twelve and one-half per cent. 
The actual loss of circulation in the adult 
circulating department was about six per 
cent. New book purchases were reduced 
during the entire year and were completely 
stopped for four months. This circumstance 
had a very depressing effect on the circula- 
tion as many people are attracted to the 
library only by recent publications." 

The report shows that the current 
receipts and expenditures, in round 
numbers, were $30,000 ; one-half of this 
sum was derived from taxation and one- 
half from bond issues, to be repaid in 
large part by a future generation. So 
limited were the resources of the 
Library Board, even with a bond issue, 
that the total outlay for new books was 
only $3,684.37 — a sum not sufficient to 
offset the wear and decay of books prev- 
iously purchased. 

While this important department of 
the city government with its 30,000 pat- 
rons, was being thus half starved, the 
city council imposed a tax levy upon all 
the property in the city of Toledo, so 
great as to yield $150,000 — ten times as 
great as that levied for the city library 
— and set this sum over to a fake uni- 
versity. 

The cities in the United States 
having a population exceeding 100,000 
award for Public Libraries an average 
tax levy of 30 cents per capita. In To- 
ledo the Public Library tax levy has 
been reduced to 8 cents per capita in 
oi'der to make room for the municipal 
university tax levy of 75 cents per 
capita. For a like reason the city fire 
and police protection has been reduced; 
the Department of Public Welfare has 
been crippled ; 1000 children in the ele- 
mentary grades are housed in cheap 
movable buildings instead of properly 
constructed permanent buildings furn- 
ished with proper sanitation and pro- 
visions for efficient teaching. 



14 



TOLEDO'S SACRED COW. 

Toledo has a sacred cow, before 
which the city council has stood in awe- 
ful reverence and subordination. The 
desperately entangled financial straits 
now confronting the city administra- 
tion, is closely related to the consump- 
tion of tax revenues by the sacred cow. 

The time has not come and the data 
is not at hand for a full discussion of 
the psychological conditions which im- 
posed on the city the sacred cow. It is 
pertinent however to set down and in 
order a few concurrent facts showing 
the alarming consumption of tax reve- 
nues by the sacred cow, and the incident 
subordination and starvation of impera- 
tive and vital functions of the city gov- 
ernment, by reason of the insatiable 
greed of the sacred cow. 

Life was strenuous for the ' ' president 
of the municipal university" and the 
"Deans" of his numerous colleges dur- 
ing the eight weeks preceding July 24, 
1916. It was needful to duly impress 
the council or no university tax levy 
would be forthcoming. 

Dangerous questions had been asked ; 
brief and exact answers would not 
serve ; to give the names of students, 
with hoars and character of work, would 
be full of danger. Another plan was 
safer. Make numerous tables and charts, 
arranged under a great variety of classi- 
fications, combining enrollment, sub- 
jects of study with "semester hours," 
' ' hours of credit, " " total registration, ' ' 
"passed," "conditioned," "failed," 
"auditors," etc.; thus numerically the 
several persons included in the ' ' enroll- 
ment ' ' would be continually repeated in 
the numerous tables and charts, making 
in all an imposing array of figures and 
indicating to the uncritical, magnitude 
of work. 

All told, more than 100 of these tables 
and charts were prepared. A compari- 
son of figures set forth in these several 
charts, and the checking one with an- 
other, disclose many interesting facts. 
Irregular and fractional time attend- 
ance appears; students enrolled in the 



first term are not found in the second 
term ; and students found in the second 
term were not found in the first term; 
many students attend one class a week, 
some twice a week. Very few* com- 
pared with the total enrollment, appear 
to be fairly faithful in attendance. On 
the whole, the tables disclose a floating 
body of students, with an average daily 
attendance not much exceeding 10 to 15 
per cent of the enrollment. 

These tables and the numerous publi- 
cations and advertisements indicate a 
"resort to methods incompatible with 
the wisdom and dignity which should 
characterize an institution devoted to 
higher learning. Rigid classification is 
not always observed. Students are ad- 
mitted, as into a great pasture to graze 
where they please, and as much or as 
little as they please." . . . "The distinc- 
tion between the college and the gram- 
mar school is often a little blurred. ' ' 

A careful analysis of some of the 
tables show that many small classes ob- 
tain, even as low at times as one or 
two students each, then three, four or 
five. Thus in one department in two 
classes two students appear; in nine 
classes three students each ; in 16 classes 
five students each. In another depart- 
ment classes of 6 students, 8 students, 9 
students and 10 students are found. 

Professor Nearing had two classes in 
the so-called Teachers College; the 
record of one class which meets one 
time a week reads : ' ■ Total registration 
28," "passed 16," "conditioned 1," 
"failed 2," "auditor 9," total 28. In 
the other class, meeting one time a week, 
the record reads : ' ' Total registration 
21," "passed 11," "failed 2," "auditor 
9," total 21. An auditor although in- 
cluded in the registration is a visitor. 

At the same time in the public schools 
— elementary and grammar grades — 
for want of funds, many teachers were 
burdened with 55 to 60 children in one 
class ; such classes abnormally large, in- 
volve an inevitable loss to the children, 
for want of proper individual attention, 
and a wearysome task to the teachers. 
And the "university professor" secur- 
ing from the city a salary four to five 
times greater than the pay awarded the 
public school teachers. 



15 



The Studious Attempt to Deceive. 

In a former publication, — of this 
series — the attempt to lead the people 
to think the attendance at the so-called 
university Avas greater than it was in 
fact, has been noted. 

We have the more recent investiga- 
tion of 1916 wherein the claim of an 
enrollment of 912 was upon examina- 
tion — so irregular and transitory was 
attendance — found to be but the equiva- 
lent of 156, regular and full time 
students. 

The question what in fact is the at- 
tendance of the so-called municipal uni- 
versity, still persists. 

The Toledo Teacher in its issue of 
December 17, 1916, evidently reflecting 
information given by the university, 
gave the enrollment as follows : 

"766 are enrolled at Toledo Uni- 
versity. There are 285 in Science 
and Arts, 119 in the Industrial Col- 
lege, 118 in Teachers' College, etc." 
In April, 1917, the editor of The To- 
ledo Times sought information at head- 
quarters and was told that the enroll- 
ment was 972. In the Times' issue of 
April 17, 1917, the editor said: 

The city of Toledo is spending $143,000 
($150,000) on its municipal university, a 
school of doubtful antecedents and flimsy 
pretentions. At the same time the city 
hasn't enough money to pay reasonable 
salaries to its fire fighters and patrolmen, 
not enough money to maintain its health 
department or keep its streets clean. Is the 
so-called university worth these sacrifices? 

There are 972 students enrolled at the 
university according to President Stowe's 
figures, and they contribute to the institution 
in the way of tuition a sum varying from 
$4,000 to $6,000, or not to exceed $7 per 
capital. Only a small proportion of the 
students are registered for the full course, 
the greater number attending to get the 
benefit of instruction in special lines. Of 
the total, 266 are enrolled in the teachers' 
college, which is said to be the president's 
hobby. Yet a few miles south the state is 
maintaining at public expense a normal 
school where men and women may acquire 
a scientific and practical knowledge of teach- 
ing. Why should Toledo spend her money 
to engage in competition with the state? 



Assuming that a university is a good 
thing to have in every community, still it is 
more or less of a luxury, and Toledo should 
not indulge in luxuries until she has acquired 
the essentials of government, which are effi- 
cient fire and police protection, a complete 
sanitary sewer system, separation of grade 
crossings and a complete health department. 
Until these features are provided for and 
with ample funds, the functions of the uni- 
versity should be suspended and the funds 
now being squandered applied to pressing 
necessities. 

From the above it appears that the 
claimed enrollment in December 1916 
in the Teachers' College was 118; and 
in April 1917 — the latter part of the 
same school year — the claimed enroll- 
ment was 266. 

The facts in the premise appear to be 
these; the so-called Teachers College 
comprises two years' work; 40 young 
women enrolled for the school year 
1915-16 and a like number in the school 
year 1916-17 ; from this total of 80 must 
be deducted those who retire from a 
variety of causes and 10 would be a 
modest estimate, — leaving a net attend- 
ance of 70 in the so-called Teachers' 
College. 

The difference between the claimed 
enrollment of 266, and the actual net 
attendance of 70 is 196, and this 196 
probably represents the number of 
teachers in the public schools and others 
who may have attended at some period 
during the year, some lectures given by 
Miss Leach — and possibly others in the 
so-called university staff. 

Now that the Board of Education has 
determined to take over the Normal 
School work and has secured the ser- 
vices of Miss Leach — the star instructor 
of the university — no shadow of excuse 
remains for continuing in Toledo the 
pretense of a Teachers' College. 

The claimed enrollment for the 1915- 
16 school year of 912 does not materially 
differ from the claimed enrollment for 
the current 1916-17 school year, of 972. 
The same irregular and transitory at- 
tendance continues and a like examina- 
tion — such as was given last year by 
the city commission of publicity and 
efficiency — would doubtless reduce the 
972 enrollment to an average of full 
time students of far below 200. With 
the retirement of the Teachers' College 
the reduction will be still greater. 



K>* 



Over Supply of Colleges 

In the last annual report of the 
United States Commissioner of Educa- 
tion, in the chapter on Higher Educa- 
tion and commenting on the over sup- 
ply of colleges, the writer says : 

"The development of public (and to 
some extent ever of private) secondary 
schools has been seriously hampered in 
certain states by an oversupply of col- 
leges, the majority of which depend in 
large measure on students' fees for sup- 
port. These states have witnessed an 
annual scramble for recruits which has 
ignored the interest of the public in the 
establishment of sound secondary 
schools and has too often made a mock- 
ery of college standards. . . . High- 
school students of the third and even of 
the second years are lured away by the 
promise of collegiate rating. The re- 
sulting burden of 'conditions' has also 
been found to vanish during the college 
course without undue effort on the part 
of the students thus ostensibly handi- 
capped. So a vicious circle has been 
established which has prevented both 
the development of the public school 
system and the realization of true col- 
legiate standards." 

The same number of words could not 
better describe condition^ which now 
obtain in Toledo, and at an annual cost 
to the tax payers of over $800 a dav 
for everv school day in the year. This 
sum, had it been set over to the Board 
of Education as it might have been but 
for the university contention, would go 
far to relieve the embarrassments con- 
tinuallv confronting the Board of Edu- 
cation, in being unable to meet the de- 
mands of numerous delegations from 
all parts of the city demanding better 
school conditions. 

The Over Supply of Law Schools. 

Dean Henry M. Bates of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan Law School (and 
well known in Toledo) furnishes the 
leading article on Legal Education in 
the last annual report of the United 
States Commissioner of Education. In 
this report Dean Bates says in part : 



"One cannot but deplore the growth of 
mushroom schools in the commercial centers. 
California, for example, has at least two ex- 
cellent schools, amply equipped in every way 
to train all the lawyers the state can pos- 
sibly need, except those who for one reason 
or another wish to go outside for their legal 
education Nevertheless, according to the 
Carnegie Foundation Study, there were in 
1915 seven other schools in California, and 
the past year has witnessed the addition of 
still another to the list, its faculty being 
made up of men actively engaged in practice 
at the bar. The same situation in multipli- 
cation of schools subject to such limitations 
that they cannot possibly do the best work 
is to be found in New York, Philadelphia, 
Chicago and other large centers. 

"Frank speaking on this subject is unfor- 
tunate in that it is almost certain to give 
offense to high-minded, conscientious lawyers 
who are giving their time to instruction in 
such schools from motives altogether credit- 
able to themselves. But the future of legal 
education and indirectly of the bar and of 
the great work which it is its duty to per- 
form for the state make it a plain duty, 
however unpleasant, to insist upon a con- 
scientious and open-eyed consideration of 
the situation." 

Ohio also furnishes an example of 
redundant Law Schools. This state has 
three "excellent law schools amply 
equipped in every way to train all the 
lawyers that the state can possibly 
need." According to the Carnegie 
Foundation Study, Ohio has six other 
schools. Two are in Toledo, and the 
latest one a municipal adventure. No 
city in the United States save Toledo 
conducts a municipal law school — an 
evening school. 

It is the opinion of competent men in 
collegiate administrative positions that 
under the publicity of the Carnegie 
Foundation and the pressure of the 
American Bar Association and the 
several State Bar Associations, the 
Evenkig Law schools are doomed to ex- 
tinction following the experience of the 
low grade medical schools, now happily 
retired from business. 



17 



THE NUMBER OF MEDICAL 

COLLEGES REDUCED FROM 

102 TO 95. 

Dr. N. P. Colwell. Secretary of the 
Council on Medical Education of the 
American Medical Association, in a re- 
cent publication states that in 1904 
[this is about the date when the con- 
cept of the Toledo University and its 
Medical College emerged] there were 
162 Medical Colleges in the United 
States granting degrees, while in 1915 
the number had been reduced to 95, 
through the weeding out of the less 
meritorious schools [including the To- 
ledo University Medical School] and 
the merger of other schools, leaving still 
an ample number of meritorious 
Medical Schools well equipped in every 
way to train all the physicians the 
country can possibly need. Dr. Col- 
well in his report says : 

"At the beginning of the campaign for the 
improvement of medical education the argu- 
ment commonly used by those interested in 
maintaining- low-standard medical colleges 
was that the 'poor boy' would no longer be 
able to get a medical education. It is the 
nurpose of higher entrance requirements to 
keep out of the medical schools students who 
pre too ignorant to master the complexities 
of the present-day medical" curriculum. The 
opportunities for those who possess the need- 
ed preliminary qualifications, but who are 
noor in purse, have really been increased. 
Many such students are working all or part 
of their way through the better medical 
schools The deserving but poor boy is the 
one nerhaps who is most capable of looking 
out for his own interests and usually knows. 
wh*»t some others evidently do not, that it 
costs no more in time and sometimes less in 
mon? v to attend a high-grade medical school 
than it does to attend some of the poorest 
enuinoed institutions. It is usually the high- 
gT5*de, well-endowed medical school also 
which offers more opportunities for stu- 
dents' self-help; they ha^ve more reed of such 
service and more funds with which to pay 
for it. Again, it is in the well-endowed in- 
stitutions that free scholarships are rapidly 
being established. The opportunity for ob- 
taining a thorough medical training is now 
within the reach of any person who is edu- 
cationally qualified to undertake it." 

What is said above, of the abundant 
opportunities for medical training by 
students "educationally qualified" to 
undertake the work, is equally true of 
all students preparing for anv profes- 
sion — Law. Engineering, Pharmacy, 
etc.. and still more emphatically is it 



true, in all lines of academic studies. 
There is never a year at the Ohio State 
or University of Michigan when some 
Toledo student is not meeting by his 
industry his current expenses. 



WHAT A DISTINGUISHED 

CHICAGO EDUCATOR SAID: 

[Dr. Henry H. Belfield. an eminent 
educator, in honor of whose services 
Belfield Hall. Chicago University, was 
named.] 

"I had not heard of the attempt to 
obtain — is STEAL too strong a word ? — 
possession of the Scott fund. This 
seems to me a piece of impudence 
equaled only by the effort to lead people 
into the belief that anything worthy of 
the name University can be established 
without either an endowment of many 
millions, or a generous and constant 
appropriation of public funds. I won- 
der whether the promoters of this 
scheme imagine that they can persuade 
the people of Ohio, who feel the need of 
increased taxation in order to put their 
State University in the front rank, that 
they desire to add to their budget the 
expense of another university. Per- 
haps they think that the city of Toledo 
wishes to furnish millions of money for 
university buildings and equipment and 
then tax themselves a half million for 
current expenses. For the city to pay 
board and tuition for every citizen, old 
and young, who shall desire a university 
education, and contribute also their 
traveling expenses to and from Colum- 
bus, would be far more sensible than to 
build and maintain a first-class univer- 
sity in Toledo. It would certainly be 
more economical. 

"We do not need more universities. 
AVe do need more first-class secondary 
schools. 

"I am somewhat acquainted with the 
financial condition of the two great uni- 
versities — Michigan and Chicago — and T 
know that they both could spend to 
very great advantage much more money 
tban they have. 

"I trust that your citizens will be 
able to defeat this attempt to divert the 
Scott fund from its original purpose. 
T cannot believe that your courts will 
lend themselves to such injustice." 



IS 



WHAT A YALE SCHOLAR SAYS: 

(Dr. George L. Fox, Principal Uni- 
versity School, New Haven, Conn.) 
"The recent establishment of so- 
called "municipal universities in a few 
cities of the United States is a danger- 
ous development which every honest 
friend of the working classes should 
steadily and persistently oppose, for it 
means robbery of the wage earning 
clases under the form of unjust taxa- 
tion. It is "dead beat socialism," be- 
cause it is founded on the demoralizing 
rule of conduct of the dead beat, viz : 
"Let somebody else pay for what I 
get." Not three per cent of the work- 
ing classes will get any benefit from 
these "pinchbeck, mushroom, institu- 
tions," but they will all have to pay 
their share for the support of them. 
Wherever they are established, to use a 
familiar labor phrase, they sweat the 
common schools, where most of the 
children finish their education, because 
they use up public funds, which in jus- 
tice to the laboring classes should be 
spent on the common schools in provid- 
ing more teachers and making classes 
smaller, so that each child can have 
more special attention. 

"This robbery of the working classes 
is clearly illustrated in the College of 
the City of New York, a city of nearly 
5,000,000 inhabitants. It represents a 
capital investment of $7,000,000 taken 
from the pockets of the inhabitants of 
the metropolis., 75 per cent of whom are 
probably the working classes. The 
anual appropriation to sustain it is 
nearly a million of dollars, all of which 
is wrung from the same source. This 
great sum ought, all of it, to have been 
used in building grammar schools and 
in paying for the teachers in these 
schools. There are nearly 700,000 chil- 
dren in the public schools of New York, 
and 200 graduates of the College of the 
City of New York. For the last thirty 
years there has never been sufficient ac- 
commodation to furnish a desk for 
every child and double sessions for dif- 
ferent children have been necessary, 
while teachers in these stagger along 
with fifty in a class. It costs each year 
the city of New York practically $5,000 
apiece to graduate 200 graduates from 
the municipal university, managed sole- 



ly for the favored few of the middle 
classes. How can any city, with the 
slightest sense of justice to the working 
clases within its limits, ever think of 
repeating for its citizens this monstrous 
injustice that for thirty years has dis- 
graced New York City. 

"But the striking lesson of New 
York's unjust robbery of the working 
man, under the form of unjust taxation 
is, that while it is an evil, the evil is 
somewhat lessened by the enormous tax- 
able wealth of the city. But this makes 
its example all the more vicious to 
smaller cities, who from silly ambition 
are disposed to set up a pinchbeck in- 
stituion and call it a municipal uni- 
versity. The smaller the city, the 
greater the wrong to the children of the 
working classes in the grammer school 
grades. Fortunately there are not a 
half dozen cities so mean to the poor 
throughout the United States as to 
sweat public school funds for municipal 
universities. ' ' 



What the Dean of the College of Edu- 
cation, Ohio State University, Said : 

"In trying to discover the value of a 
municipal university it might be proper 
to consider the burden of its mainte- 
nance. 

"The experience of the city of Toledo 
in its effort to found a city university, 
if it does not present an educational 
comedy, may soon develop an educa- 
tional tragedy. 

"In a letter written a few days ago 
by a citizen of Toledo, he says: 'I 
beg to draw your attention to the di- 
version of public funds from sore 
needed public utilities. Our Board of 
Education as you well know is making 
every effort to give our public school 
system the highest degree of efficiency. 
This can only be secured by large finan- 
cial resources. We are confronted by a 
pending danger that our Board of Edu- 
cation must reduce its annual levy to 
make room for a university scheme." 

[From the address of W. W. Bovd, 
Dean of the College of Education, Ohio 
State University, before the Department 
of Higher Education of The National 
Educational Association, in Chicago, on 
July 9, 1912.] 



19 



The Toledo Teacher, April 1917. 
Dr. J. H. Francis, Superintendent of Public 
Schools, Columbus, Ohio, Formerly 
of Los Angeles, California. 

On Friday afternoon, March 16th, the 
teachers assembled at Scott High School 
enjoyed a real treat. The address by Supt. 
J. H. Francis, Columbus, 0., might well have 
been named "How Children Are Interested 
in True Education Through the Expenditure 
of a Little More Money." 

The films were taken for the International 
Exposition at San Francisco, and empha- 
sized the manual work as well as the work 
with foreigners. From this viewpoint they 
are without doubt unequaled today. . . . 

The pictures show what is possible when 
adequate funds are provided. Beginning 
with the sand-pile and blocks for building, 
we seemed to see the little children as happy 
as at a picnic, yet carefully directed that 
they might constantly meet new experiences 
and gain fresh knowledge. . . . 

Dramatization of "Robinson Crusoe," 
"Hans Anderson" and "The Three Bears" 
made those stories all but reality to hun- 
dreds at a time. One hundred orchestras 
made ten thousand happy each week. Cos- 
tume designing, interior decoration, land- 
scape gardening, practical botany and nature 
study illustrated coming phases of art in 
our public schools. 

Gardening became a part of life as de- 
picted upon the screen. Cement work, 
measuring walks, finding number of posts 
needed for a certain fence, serving of a meal 
and figuring the cost are some of the prac- 
tical ideas suggested by the film. . . . 

Neighborhood schools, day nurseries, com- 
munity wash-houses, night schools for thous- 
ands above school age, all suggested sub- 
jects for consideration. 

The high school pictures showed forge 
work, boat-building, making of furniture for 
the home, preparation of food for the cafe- 
teria, caring for and judging poultry, prun- 
ing and spraying trees, as well as caring for 
and milking a cow. 

Art and clay work, archery, a stage upon 
which a Latin play was being enacted, dram- 
atization of French, German and Spanish, 
all showed the breadth and possibilities of a 
well-equipped system. In fact, the speaker 
said: "The limit lies not with the boys and 
girls; it lies with the system." 

Dr. Francis urged: 

That it is a duty to society to conserve 
child life. 

That since the child constitutes a nation's 
greatest asset, no public investment equals 
that made in the development of children. 



That diversity in children, as in grown 
people, is fully as pronounced and as im- 
portant as uniformity and must be reasoned 
with by those charged with the responsibility 
of educating the race. 

That failure to recognize the widely di- 
verse aptitudes, interests and powers of 
children has resulted in a loss of at least 75 
per cent of the potentiality of civilization. 

That self-discovery, self-expression, self- 
direction and self-sustenance constitute the 
universal fundamentals, and every child 
holds a hereditary right to opportunities for 
coming into his full own in all of these. 

What will serve one of his efforts at full 
development may fail another. It is the 
business of the schools to find the thing or 
things that will stimulate, build and sustain 
each one It was his firm conviction that, 
barring subnormal mentality and physical 
weakness, every boy and girl can be saved 
to himself or herself and civilization if given 
the right things, at the right time, and in 
the right way. 

[Had the city of Toledo secured for 
the Board of Education one-half the 
sum squandered on a fake university, 
all the above enrichment of child-life 
could have been the heritage of the 
children of Toledo.] 



From The Ohio State Journal, 
February 10, 1917. 

EX-GOVERNOR HARMON AND THE 
SMITH LAW. 

Ex-Governor Harmon's letter to Senator 
Terrell in which he advises against any 
tampering with the one per cent law is the 
expression of a statesman. That law recog- 
nizes a principle that should stand in the 
face of the little inconveniences that it en- 
counters. 

If that. law had been honestly obeyed as 
good citizenship demanded, no one would 
rise today to say ought against it. But the 
situation is different. The law has been 
trampled upon and the men who have been 
guilty of its violation now rise up and de- 
mand its repeal. If they had been law- 
abiding citizens and obeyed the law, there 
would be very little trouble to complain of. 
The only trouble with the law is, the tax 
spenders have refused to make use of it, to 
relieve the people of their burdens. The 
only thing to say to these complainers is, go 
home and all will be well. 

[Happily the majority of the legisla- 
tive members and tlfe Governor held 
firmly to the view of Ex-Govemor Har- 
mon. The cities most persistent in the 
demand that in some way this law 
should be made non-effective were To- 
ledo, Akron and Cincinnati. The record 
of these cities in unwise tax spending, 
served in a large measure to preserve 
the Smith Law unimpaired.] 



20 



The Case of Scott Nearing 



THE UNIVERSITY OF PENN- 
SYLVANIA AND SCOTT 
NEARING. 

Dr. J. William White, a trustee of the 
University of Pennsylvania, published 
in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, on 
Sunday, October 3, 1915, an article in 
which he made the following state- 
ment : 

"I found long before this year, 
that sober-minded, sensible persons, 
had received from Dr. Nearing the 
strong impression that he advocat- 
ed the ruthless redistribution of 
property; that he believed in the 
personal iniquity of those who lived 
on incomes derived from their own 
savings; and that he thought that 
the alternative of work or starva- 
tion should be presented even to the 
old, the feeble, and the diseased. 
I thought my sensible friends had 
misunderstood him, but the fact 
that they had been given the op- 
portunity to hear him made me 
even more doubtful of his fitness to 
represent the University before the 
public as one of the chosen ex- 
pounders of the principles of eco- 
nomics. When such incidents mul- 
tiplied as years went on, and per- 
sons whose good-will and respect 
for the University seemed to me im- 
portant were so affected as to lead 
them to say* sometimes angrily, 
sometimes sorrowfully, that they 
could not let their boys be exposed 
to such influences, and said: *I 
know, because I heard him myself.' 
I realized that it had become my 
duty as a trustee to consider 
whether his influence on the whole 
was helpful or prejudicial. ' ' 
Hon. George Wharton Pepper, also a 
trustee of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, in answer to a question, re- 
plied in the press : 

"My own opinion, to which I 
have no right to commit the Board, 
is that among his characteristics 
are sensationalism in the treatment 
of subjects which require grave 
consideration, inexorable taste in 



selecting the occasion for utter- 
ances likely to give offense, and 
that kind of youthful exuberance 
that leads a man to conclude that 
what this weary world is waiting 
for is frequent ex cathedra utter- 
ances from him." 

Immediately after the dropping of 
Dr. Nearing, a group of thirty-three 
Philadelphia alumni, including a num- 
ber of prominent members of the bar of 
that city, issued a public statement in 
defense of the trustees. They said in 
part: 

1 1 n^^Q right to freedom of speech, 
restrained by common sense and 
common decency is a right to be 
cherished, and it is a right that has 
never been trenched upon or 
abridged by the University of 
Pennsylvania. There are certain 
recognized limitations of this right ; 
we know of no better statement of 
them than that made by Professor 
Schelling in his recent commence- 
ment address at the University. 
(Quotation omitted.) The rules 
which Professor Schelling so stated 
were clearly violated in and out of 
the University by Dr. Nearing 
whose intemperance, persistent and 
astonishing expressions of untested 
theories, and whose unrestricted 
condemnation of institutions and 
rules which form the basis of civil- 
ized society, passed the most gen- 
erous bounds of freedom of speech 
allowed by any institution and 
gained for Dr. Nearing a notor- 
iety and discredit which reflected 
upon the University. The alumni 
could not fail to perceive this situ- 
ation and many of them have 
thought the trustees were slow in 
severing a connection that sub- 
jected the University to continual 
criticism. ' ' 

In the public statement made by the 
Trustees of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania,, the following paragraph appears : 

"When an individual teacher's 
methods, language, and tempera- 
ment provoke continued and wide- 



n 



spread criticism alike from parents 
of students and from the general 
public, who know him only by his 
public utterances, the freedom of 
choice in selection of some other 
person is a right equally as inherent 
in the board of trustees, legally 
charged with its exercise by the 
charter, as is the right of freedom 
of opinion and thought and teach- 
ing in the faculties. And this duty 
must be exercised for the good of 
the university as a whole." 

The Association of American Profes- 
sors, in the Scott Nearing case — as ob- 
served in the recent report of the 
United States Commissioner of Educa- 
tion — "did not wish to imply that the 
university teacher is to be subject to no 
restraints whatever" for the Associa- 
tion Committee said : 

"The liberty of the scholar within the uni- 
versity to set forth his conclusions, be they 
what they may, is conditioned by their being 
conclusions gained by the scholar's method 
and held in a scholar's spirit; that is to say, 
they must be the fruits of competent and 
patient and sincere inquiry, and they should 
be set forth with dignity, courtesy and tem- 
perateness of language." 

The above conclusion was greatty 
emphasized when at a recent session of 
university teachers, in New York City, 
a distinguished professor of Columbia 
and a leading member of the above 
committee, was moved to withdraw in 
protest, following the reckless and what 
he deemed untruthful statements of 
"Professor Scott Nearing of the To- 
ledo University." 

# # # # 

The Rev. L. B. Fisher, head of the 
Ryder Divinity School, now affiliated 
with the University of Chicago, in a 
letter to the University Leader, May 5, 
1917, said : 

"Five minutes listening to Scott 
Nearing would show why no self- 
respecting board of university trus- 
tees in the world would turn him 
loose in a class of freshmen." 
What shall be said of a group of men 
posing as "university directors," who 



shall employ such a man, and deplete 
to the extent of a liberal salary the tax- 
ation funds belonging to and much more 
needed by the elementary schools of 
the city and "turn him loose" not on 
a class of freshmen but upon a body of 
young men quite unacquainted with the 
studies taught in the city high schools ? 



An Educational Gold Brick. 

The publisher of a leading journal in 
a neighboring state writes that further 
information relating to the Toledo uni- 
versity "confirms all my former ideas 
about that educational gold brick and 
the soap box orator connected with it. ' ' 



Class Hatred. 

Senator Lodge in the Boston Trans- 
script, October 15, 1908, said: 

"I regard the attempt to array class 
against class in this country as making- 
war upon the most cherished principles 
of the American Republic. The United 
States have become what they are, be- 
cause they have given the largest free- 
dom to individual enterprise and ability. 
The idea that every man who is not a 
Socialist has closed his ears to the cry 
of distress is one of the many foul slan- 
ders that that party has put forward. . . 
Without regard for politics, look well to 
the man who sets class against class, 
and arrays one occupation against an- 
other." 



Marat and Scott Nearing. 

Elbert Hubbard, in a "Little Journey to 
the Home of Jean Paul Marat," observes that 
"Marat fell a victim to his own eloquence. 
* * * Wealth to him was an offense — he 
had not the prophetic vision to see the rise 
of capitalism and all the splendid industrial 
evolution which the world today is working 
out. Society to him was all founded on 
wrong premises, and he would uproot it." 

A difference, however appears between 
Marat and the Toledo professor, for Hubbard 
tells us that "Marat was so scrupulous in 
money matters that he would accept no help 
from the government," while the professor 
declined to come to Toledo "to stick his finger 
in public affairs" until assured of a good 
salary from the public treasury. 



22 



(Toledo Times, April 17, 1917.) 

"The attitude of the trustees in retaining 
Nearing betrays a total lack of public in- 
terest. Nearing's engagement was a joke. 
His dismissal from Pennsylvania University 
afforded sensation mongers a chance and 
they made the most of it. Nearing was 
thus well advertised, and one of the bright 
trustees suggested that an offer to Nearing 
would be a great advertisement for the To- 
ledo university. 

"The suggestion was acted upon, but no 
one dreamed he would accept, because the 
trustees could not meet an offer, it was 
claimed, Nearing had received from another 
source. What was intended for a bit of 
clever press agent stuff turned out to be a 
serious matter since Nearing promptly 
wished himself on this community. 

"As long as he confined his utterances to 
Socialistic platitudes, no one cared, but when 
he ridiculed the flag and made light of 
patriotism, he brought down on his head a 
shower of protests — not because he had 
spoken as he did, but because, being a hired 
teacher of the university, everything that 
he said that went unchallenged bore a stamp 
of the university's approval (Toledo munici- 
pal approval). And the people of Toledo 
who are paying Nearing's salary don't ap- 
prove of him or of his treasonable utter- 
ances." 

[A knowledge of the standing of the 
Toledo university would lead any man 
of attainments, to pause before accept- 
ing a tender of employment. Scott 
Nearing did know and he did pause. 
He waited until the end of the employ- 
ment season for a call from some one 
of the 500 collegiate institutions of a 
good or fair repute in the United States. 
No call came and the Toledo university 
adventure became the only open door 
for university alliance for his especial 
field of propaganda. 

At the time the tender of employ- 
ment was made — and now — the so- 
called university was provided with ad- 
vertised teachers in economics and 
sociology, more than ample for all 
students in attendance educationally 
qualified for such collegiate work. 

Nearing's aptitude for getting into a 
row and getting himself talked about in 
the press, appealed to the directors. 
Incidentally this would lead to the men- 



tion of the ' ' university ' ' with which he 
was connected. In his cavorting about 
the country, challenging the mention of 
his name in the press, he has left the 
trail of "The Toledo University" in 
Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, New York 
and elsewhere, to the great delight of 
the directors. It was duly impressed 
on the city council — the source of 
municipal university money supply — 
that the Toledo university must be a 
wonderful institution to get itself men- 
tioned in the metropolitan press. 

His salary should be charged to Pub- 
licity and Advertising. Perhaps it is. 
No one knows for the university makes 
no report. A five hundred dollar fee 
secured from a lawyer the legal opinion 
that the university was immune from 
all city supervision or control — an im- 
perium in imperio. 



(From Toledo-News-Bee, May 26, 1917.) 

Business Men Protest Memorial 

Hall Lease. 

Ten Toledo men, on request of a meet- 
ing of 300 business men and bankers 
of the 20 counties of northwestern Ohio, 
protested to Mayor Milroy on Satur- 
day morning against the use of Memor- 
ial hall for pacifist or other unpatriotic 
meetings. The protest was as follows : 
Charles M. Milroy, Mayor of Toledo. 

At a meeting held on Friday, May 25, 
comprising 300 representative citizens of 20 
counties of northwestern Ohio, who were 
here in response to a call from the govern- 
ment of our country, to consider means of 
advancing response to the Liberty Loan, in- 
structions were unanimously given that an 
emphatic protest should be made against the 
leasing of Memorial hall to those who in 
this time of national crisis are seeking to 
obstruct the due processes of our govern- 
ment being exerted in the national defense. 

We desire to voice our stand as American 
citizens, striving to do our part with all 
other American citizens, against the use of 
a building dedicated by the people of To- 
ledo and Lucas county to the honored mem- 
ory of our soldier dead, for seditious attacks 
on the government or for the purposes of 
those who are advancing a pro-German 
propaganda. 



23 



We particularly object to the two dates 
chosen for the un-American purpose, the eve 
of Memorial day and the eve of registra- 
tion day, and we demand, in the name of 
American citizenship, that this historic 
building- be not leased for any such pur- 
pose, not alone on these dates, but as long- 
as this country shall be at war. 

We agree with you that free speech is a 
constitutional right, but this does not mean 
that Memorial hall should be used for meet- 
ings the plain purpose of which is to ques- 
tion the course to which our representative 
government has, by overwhelming majority, 
dedicated the best efforts of this country. 

In common with all our people we are 
demonstrating our loyal support of our 
American government and of democracy by 
not only contributing of our means but by 
the sterner task of dedicating our sons to 
the same service. 

We protest with all the vigor that is in 
us that our city administration should not in 
the most remote degree lend itself to any 
agitation or agitators tending to increase 
the dangers for our boys or to embarrass 
our government in the course to which it is 
committed. 

The situation is too grave, may become 
very much too grave, for our own people to 
excuse the palliation, much less the en- 
couragement of anything that savors of 

sedition. 

v 
S. D. CARR, Chairman, 

WILLIAM K. TERRY, 

F. J. REYNOLDS, 

H. C. RORICK, 

WILL W. MORRISON, 

HENRY C. TRUESDALL, 

E. H. CADY, 

E. M. ROSENTHAL, 

W. A. GOSLINE, JR., 

E. B. CONLISS, Secretary, 

Committee. 

[If the future historian shall ask, as 
well lie may, the occasion for this extra- 
ordinary communication, lie will find 
the answer in the files of the daily press 
for the preceeding three months. 

He will find the so-called Toledo uni- 
versity the articulate voice of all the 
elements of unrest and dissatisfaction 
in the community — parading under the 
banner, freedom of speech. 

He will also find — perhaps much to 
his surprise— that the insistent demand 



for large and ever increasing city ap- 
propriations for a so-called municipal 
university, is limited almost exclusively 
to the hypnotized disciples of a propa- 
ganda in social and economic recon- 
struction, believed by the great major- 
ity of the people to be full of peril and 
danger.] 

The position taken in the foregoing- 
protest, endorsed by the G. A. R., the 
Sons .and Daughters of the American 
Revolution, and by every member of 
the mayor's cabinet, had received a 
singular confirmation in a leading ad- 
dress by a distinguished journalist be- 
fore a convocation of Michigan Uni- 
versity Alumni held May 2nd, 1917, 
and entitled, "Academic Freedom vs. 
Academic Duty." 

As reported in the Michigan Alumnus 
the speaker said : 

"We do not, and we should not, per- 
mit any teacher to mould the student 
mind according to standards con- 
demned by the American people. In 
effect every teacher is bound to support 
the Constitution and the Declaration of 
Independence, and to conform to the 
social and political principles upon 
which this nation is founded. 

"The nation is the majority, and this 
majority must not only determine the 
nation's course of action, but it must 
and should compel all persons to follow 
that course of action ; otherwise we are 
not a nation. The nation's power over 
the individual is absolute, even to re- 
quiring his life if need be, and this in- 
volves the right and the duty to sup- 
press every activity that does not pro- 
mote the common purpose. We can 
tolerate disloyalty in the class room no 
sooner than we would in a fortress or 
aboard a battleship. 

"These actions are not contrary to 
the spirit of liberty, but in support of it. 
The nation is staking its life on a battle 
for liberty, and it can tolerate no ob- 
structive action simply because such ac- 
tion may be founded on a false plea of 
academic freedom. The duty to "stand 
by the President" is shared by all per- 
sons and all institutions, and no man 
can be permitted to interfere with the 
nation's spiritual mobilization, any 
more than with the movement of its 
troops. ' ' 



24 



The New York Times, January 1, 1916 

"THE CRASH OF NEW YORK: 

"Professor Scott Nearing seems to have 
recovered fully from the tortures of mar- 
tyrdom inflicted on him by the trustees 
of the University of Pennsylvania in June. 
He is now teaching economics at the Uni- 
versity of Toledo. He is full of faith 
and activity. 'University students,' he 
tells his Toledo blades, 'should know how 
to serve their community. I have come here 
to stick my finger in public affairs and 
teach them.' The professor's English is 
a bit ambiguous, but his courage and his pur- 
pose are fine. He proceeded to stick his 
fingers into — New York — this city of dread- 
ful blight. 'The worst city in the world/ he 
calls it. Worse than Philadelphia, that un- 
just stepmother? The professor must be 
cruel only to be kind He is warning the 
wicked for their own good 'I would predict 
that the city will crash one of these days. 
* * * A New Yorker believes that great- 
ness means quantity.' With respect, Pro- 
fessor Nearing, in spite of his gift of habit- 
ual understatement, is too severe with New 
York. It venerates quality; and his especial 
quality of moderation it will admire until the 
crash comes and the wide arch of our ranged 
city falls." 

•£ * * 

Toledo Times, March 19, 1917. 
Following a meeting in Zenobia hall Sun- 
day night in defense of Dr. Scott Nearing, 
500, mostly Socialists and labor unionists, 
adopted a resolution asking the board of 
trustees of the Toledo University not to ac- 
cept Nearing's resignation. 

* * # 

"These are times when street corner 
philosophers have no hesitation in pro- 
posing for society full-fledged schemes 
of social organization by their happy 
thoughts. They would settle all troubles 
— racial, political, economical, and what 
not. To them it seems possible to cut 
loose from the past, and in new de- 
partures avoid the mistakes this old 
world's inhabitants have made from 

the beginning." 

* * * 

A Municipal University director three 
times appointed by the mayor — a former 
candidate for congress in this district on 
the Socialist ticket — as early as 1906 de- 
clared in a press interview that Toledo 
was to have the credit of establishing 
the first municipal university devoted 
to the propoganda of socialism. The 
success that has attended his efforts 
cannot fail to be the source of great per- 
sonal gratification. 



MUST GET CONTROL OF SCHOOL 
BOARDS. 

A Socialistic publication, claiming to 
represent a "college" created and main- 
tained to deseminate the tenants of 
"scientific" socialism, contains the fol- 
lowing : 

"We workers must get control of 
every school board and board of 
education in the nation. We must 
own and control the gathering and 
distribution of that thing upon 
which civilization is built. 

"To help us attain that end the 
People's College was born." 

Then follows an emotional appeal to 
all who sympathize with such purpose, 
for funds to keep the "college" going. 

The Toledo University is relieved 
from the necessity of such vigorous ap- 
peal. The subtile and persistant man- 
agement has been able to accomplish 
what has never before been accom- 
plished and largely made possible 
through the inattention of an inert pub- 
lic. The scheme devised has been an 
enforced collection from all tax payers 
in the city. In every center of social- 
ism the country over the Toledo munici- 
pal adventure is being watcher with 
lively interest. The above named publi- 
cation in nearly every number gives 
prominences to the utterances of the 
Oracle in Chief of the Toledo Uni- 
versity. If like "universities" can be 
financed in other cities as in Toledo — 
and the Oracle tells the Woman's Club 
that he thinks they can — institutions of 
the type of the People's College will be 
supplanted by the "Municipal Uni- 
versity" and voluntary contributions 
will no longer be needed. 

Is it any wonder that the disciples of 
the "unrest," radical Socialists, and I. 
W. W. 's appear on the university mail- 
ing list in such numbers that a "pro- 
fessor" can on short notice fill the coun- 
cil chamber or a public hall with 
clamerers for university taxation at 
whatever cost to public welfare, or 
shouters to the exposition of the new 
social order as taught in the municipal 
university. 



THE JESUP W. SCOTT HIGH SCHOOL TOLEDO, O. 

This site comprises a tract of ten acres. 







i : -r- ... ' . ;. 



til ill 




THE MORRISON R. WAITE HIGH SCHOOL, TOLEDO, O. 

This site comprises a tract of fifteen acres. 




Protect the Elementary and Secondary Schools 

In Toledo the annual cost per pupil for full time attendance in the ele- 
mentary schools does not exceed $50.00 ; the annual cost per pupil for full time 
attendance in the high schools does not exceed $100.00; the "enrollment" in 
the so-called Municipal University, reduced to the basis of like full time attend- 
ance, indicates an annual cost for each full time student in excess of $700.00. 

The average period of attendance in the ' ' University ' ' of students receiv- 
ing degrees and diplomas, as shown in the annual exercises held in June, 1917, 
has been two years ; in many cases much less. This at the best is the work of 
a Junior College. As shown on page 7 it has been necessary to invent new 
and strange degrees to meet the conditions of unpreparedness and brief attend- 
ance. 



Edited and Compiled by ALBERT E. 
-JUNE 1917 — 



MACOMBER 



Press of Kraus & Schreiber, Printers 
124 Michigan Street — Toledo, Ohio 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




ESSlSi'iS HBB85SmMwB^:-.^m» 




Bgff Blllwfrt^SpPPSffyS v it»Sr 




' SSaHK^I^ I^W*^™Pi 








K^BSS^^MWS^h^mm^ 




HHBBHPflK^SEX^SiHHpJHBIwRS 










&9H 


m^^iraj siisp 


^Kj|P 






•■'■.■■-:•■■*,•' 








F^ffnB 




jxjjmfi 




Km 



■ 



^H 



H 



^H 



m, 



■ 



■ 



■ 












IS BS9 



mil mliFi Tw 



mssm 



SmBm 






■ 




■HHUHRB 



mm 









¥&. 



Hi 










028 316 258 8 



